Goodbye Manifesto

I'm leaving for mexico in less than 7 hours. holy fucking shit.

My throat is clenched shut but still moist despite the sore throat I feel coming on... I've been slowly seeing the signs of a cold brewing for awhile now and I think it's finally settling in. Sneezing and hacking up globs of clear gooey snot that was trying to coat my throat. I'm sure that my immunity is down because of my stress. When I did theatre, I was never nervous until I got backstage and the lights went out. Anxiety would grip me as I waited in the wings for my cue, but when I stepped on stage, there was never any fear about how I would perform or the successes or failures we would make... I was confident and went with the flow. It's happening again now. I'm biding my time until I pass through security and I'm on my way... biding my time with a heavy chest and aching mind.

My mom keeps telling me to come to bed... I know that I won't sleep. There are still things left to do that I've been putting off. I never wrote those thank you cards. I never printed out the pictures that I want to hang on my wall in my new Mexican room. My computer is obviously not packed away in my book bag. Maybe I should try for just a few hours of sleep. Run around in the morning getting those knit picky things done. I can always send thank yous from Mexico. Hell, they might feel more gratitude if I took the time to mail it from a foreign country. Can sentiment and gratitude be augmented by distance? Reminds me of frequent flyer miles for some reason except with emotion.

What scares me the most about this particular adventure of mine, is that I have no safety net. I've gone away before, but always with someone I knew well. Maria is starting university in Nurnberg. Heather is somewhere... god knows. Will I find someone to be friends with? Someone that I want as my friend and not just because I am friendly? It's the same feeling I have with family. It was so wonderful to meet Sarah because I feel like she is a family member that if I met "in the wild", I would befriend. Will the people in my group become my friends only because they are in my group? I hope not!

I always feel stupid and pretentious when I think of my next statement... but I imagine that it's essentially true for all people--
I'm an offbeat person with a lot of interests that your average joe is not so hip on. Between my music and political leanings- I usually lose people. I find people that align with me, but I acknowledge that we are definitely a minority in this country. But I guess, what is a typical American like? This all comes back to my family reference above. Sarah, my mom, my cousin Lisa and I are definitely the oddballs of the family. The artsy ones- free spirited and whatever you want to call it. I've always felt like an anomaly in my family. Well... whatever.

Mallku messaged me. He's in California. I wonder if school in Lima didn't pan out. I hope that he hooks up with Heather and then they both come out to the east coast in December to visit. I owe it to Mallku to show him a great time. He was a big reason why Peru was so wonderful. Without him... things would have been terribly bland.

I also talked to Dominique tonight. Her story is an interesting one but she always plays a victim to circumstance. I feel like I need to be careful.

Obama/Biden '08

Last Hoorahs

I had my going away party this weekend. Man, it's weird to feel the departure looming. I'm looking at people for the last time (at least for the next few months). There's so much I have left to do. I'm almost done packing really... just organizing it better. I try not to think about it.

The party was a lot of fun. Family, young ones, old ones... my punk ass friends... we played twister & piñata, chowed down, chilled and got pretty silly...







I did invite the Goldsmiths, but they didn't come. I guess this past Thursday was my last time watching the kids, and I didn't really realize it. I did take my camera- here are my special favorites...





I'm really going to miss them. They were such a joy to watch. I promised that I'd send a postcard from Mexico on Andre and Carla's birthdays. I can't forget.

Jes turned me on to a new "comic"/comedy site- wherearethedogshumping.com

Check it out...






and this is a sweet blacklight tattoo I saw... guess blacklight ink could be carcinogenic... contain phosphorus and other lovely chemicals and allergens. I'm not a raver so I don't go under blacklight that often... I guess, I'll opt out for now.

Water You Serious?

In the August issue of Allure magazine, I found an interesting factoid on page 179-- "Campaign strategists found that Democrats are more apt to drink Evian, while Republicans prefer Fiji". Hmm... I wonder why? A better question may be, who cares?

*Americans drink roughly 29.3 gallons of bottled water a year that means over 8.8 BILLION gallons of bottled water total, making the US the largest consumer of bottled water followed by Mexico, 5.9 billion; China, 4.8 billion and Brazil 3.6 billion gallons. 96% of bottled water consumed in the US is domestic non-sparkling with only 2% of our bottled water being imported. All this when the United States has some of the best water treatment in the world.

I, personally, refill a glass bottle with water when I go out. At school, I keep a Nalgene of tap water in my refridgerator. Not only is drinking bottled water seemingly pointless when you think of water quality, but think of how wasteful and harmful to the environment!

Get educated people, here's a great article- Bottles, Bottles, Everywhere by Ramon Cruz

here's a fantastic quote from the article- "Tap water is delivered to homes and offices for $0.002 a gallon. Bottled water, which can cost as much per gallon as gasoline, is a thousand times more expensive."

make sure you look at netpromoguy's comment at the bottom of the article, he brings up a good point about the BPA and other chemical toxins that leak into our food, drinks, and air from plastics.


*stats from the beverage marketing corporation

11 Days Until Departure

Ok ok ok... a lot to talk about.

Deerhunter on the 10th was absolutely amazing. Everyone was packed up by the stage in a thick layer of sweat. I was a little peeved that a tall blonde guy was pogoing right in front of me, but he quieted down after I told him that a 50 cent piece sized stain had formed on his back... I could only assume was blood. His response? To put on another shirt. I had heard that they weren't going to perform Cryptograms anymore, but hooray! they did! Ending the show with Strange Lights made me ecstatic! My second time seeing the full group, third seeing Bradford and everytime I'm left fulfilled.

On Thursday, i went into the city to visit Missy, Emily and Mac. Jason was supposed to come with me but ended up bailing. There was terrible traffic because of a Pirates game to boot. It was so nice to hang out with Mac on his last night in the city before he went back to Corry before school though. A bunch of his friends were over and we were all eating pizza and drinking wine or beer.

Emily finally got to meet Mac and really liked him (as was expected). Emily has decided to leave AIP early- after two more quarters, she'll get her associates in Photography then she wants to go to an academic school. Her parents are cool with it as long as she goes in PA or VA. That means no New York Emily for me. :( She is definitely on my wave length and I feel like I can truly be myself with her. I'm so terribly going to miss her when I'm gone.

Driving home from Mac's was a bad idea since I was so tired. I thought that I was going to pass out the whole way. I know that I could have just stayed at Mac's but I was under the impression that I was going to wake up the next morning and go to work (I didn't). I love Mac. Maybe my momma will be right oneday.

So, I don't know. This past friday was just terrible for my soul. Jake, Jason, and I were jamming and I just couldn't get into it. I was missing my bass (my true jamming instrument of choice) and was not into playing the tambourine anymore. So... push comes to shove, I ask Jason to take me up to my house so that I can eat some dinner. 45 minutes later, I'm done eating and Jason calls. Story is, Emma is going to Pittsburgh and Jason and Jake really want to go. Problem is, Emma can only fit four people in her car and she has Brandon with her already. So, only two other people can go. What is a person supposed to say to that? I would have liked to go into the city, especially since I wouldn't have to drive by myself like the night before, but I ended up staying at home embroidering and watching terrible television programming. I cried for hours before I finally fell asleep.

My time in Canonsburg is limited. Very limited. I leave for Mexico on the 29th but after that, well, I'll be around in the winter, but who knows after that. I have to get an internship next summer (should have been doing that this summer) and my best bets are in NYC NOT Pittsburgh. All I want to do is spend some quality time with my friends and I get ditched even though Jason said he didn't want me to feel like I was getting ditched.

Jason asked me if I wanted to hang out on Saturday, but oh hey, I went into the city to hang out on Mt. Woo with the Ruxton kids. Katie Gould left on Sunday to go back to Youngstown because she'll be attending Youngstown U for painting. We got the peace pipe out and Jess rolled the fattest blunt I've ever seen. I gave Emily a killer shotgun with five dragon's breaths. It ended up to be a late night, I guess we didn't get back until 3 am.

My last full week in the US of A. crazy.

I've really gotten into the whole podcast and iTunes U stuff. I like watching lectures on philosophy and buddhism. I'm an insatiable student, I guess.

Emotional People

Man, the universe sends me messages, and I read them. Either I'll be thinking about someone that I haven't heard from in a long time, I'll get some weird dream about them, or I'll find something relating to them- low and behold!! they contact me! It's happened with Mallku, Scott Sierzega and now, Noah Chilton. Yesterday I was about to sign into my blog when I noticed that in the username field was Noah's email. Weird. Strange. How did that happen? Well, today, he calls me! It was so nice to hear his voice and hear what has been going on in Seattle. I hope that we stay friends so that I can be an aunt to his children like he asked back at school.

If I marry someone with siblings, then I could possibly be an aunt. Otherwise, well, no aunthood for me. I missed having siblings as a child. I was always alone when I was at home. My mom and grandparents were always working or busy with this or that. I would just retreat into my imagination, draw, play with my Barbies, talk to birds. I think that is partially why my mom and I have been grating on each other lately. We aren't used to being around each other this much. In school I was always doing band, theatre or working and she was working two jobs at the time herself. I'm used to being around my peers at school. I'm used to being by myself. I'm also just feeling frustrated with my future. I don't know if anything that I've done so far or am planning to do is actually pushing towards the future I've begun to imagine. I don't even know what my future will really end up being. I'm considering finishing Vassar and going to a technical school. HA. A fancy education just to get a certificate in welding, carpentry or electronics. But who knows. Maybe I'll end up in New York working at a magazine. I really have to stop thinking about it because I feel like I'm blinding myself to the present moment.

Harrison got on the phone after Noah. He's going to hitch hike through Latin American to Argentina where Kevin's sister will be studying. He got me so worried. I know he and Kevin hiked across China, but Latin America is a slightly different story that involves DRUG CARTELS. I told him, Mexico through Central America and down through the north of South America will be the scary part. There's your best bet at getting mugged, kidnapped etc. If he got to Peru, I think he'd be alright. Travelling in a group of very American college age boys who don't know any Spanish will only get them into trouble. I'm still having difficulty moving on completely from him too. I know that the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference, and I'm definitely not indifferent to him. It would take a miracle for me to ever want him again (most likely vice versa as well), but my thoughts keep racing back and forth about what happened and will happen. Fern is coming with Geneva to Seattle. I wonder what the story is there. I wonder if he moved on from that phase too. Ugh.



I can't get close to Fern for certain reasons. 1) She was an ally when shit was going down with Harrison. We used to talk about a lot of things including how she wasn't going to settle for anyone to just date. She didn't want to date Harry because he was socially awkward. So when she and Harrison were hooking up, I can't help if I felt a little betrayed. (see above illustration)
2) Her conduct in relation to friends/lovers reminds me of Dominique. There is no need to elaborate.

Speaking of D, she emailed Jes and said that she's moving back to Pittsburgh and wants to hang out. We have to keep her far far away from Jason. I just hope that our precautions are unnecessary and both of them keep their distance. I don't want to be siamese twins again- I just want to touch base and see how the person I spent every minute of two very developmental years with is doing.

Treeeeeeeeees

My toby trees are being EATEN!!!! I know that the Catawba Sphinx moth is just fueling up as a caterpillar to metamorphose, but I love my trees and don't like to see them being ingested and pooped out while I'm trying to enjoy their canopy! I'm just very protective of my plants. Onetime, my mother did some serious pruning to my Toby tree without my consultation or approval and I flipped shit at her for it. I know that pruning helps give them a better shape and makes branches hardier, but I just couldn't stand knowing that a piece of them had been chopped off. Maybe it's because when I was young,

Bad Jam

I'm at Jake's right now. I was very excited to record with Jason today. Do a handclap maybe? But alas, Jon is jamming with us today which means that the Birds & Bees EP was put on hold because, well... jamming with Jon usually results in little cohesion. Especially considering that we've been laying tracks indiviually so far for the project, it's made the thought of recording worthless. I'm not dissing Jon in anyway... my musical brain needs more of a driving force and Jon is more oriented towards straight up noise. I was hearing some stuff that gave me ideas for songs though. So that's good.

I wish I had an affectionate cat.

Gene Pool

pictures of family fun in Charlevoix, Michigan.